Trends in Library automation and digital libraries Marshall Breeding Director for Innovative Technologies and Research Vanderbilt University http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/breeding Redefining Libraries: Web 2.0 and other Challenges May 2007 Xiamen,
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Transcript Trends in Library automation and digital libraries Marshall Breeding Director for Innovative Technologies and Research Vanderbilt University http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/breeding Redefining Libraries: Web 2.0 and other Challenges May 2007 Xiamen,
Trends in Library automation
and digital libraries
Marshall Breeding
Director for Innovative Technologies and Research
Vanderbilt University
http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/breeding
Redefining Libraries:
Web 2.0 and other Challenges
May 2007 Xiamen, China
Business Landscape
Library Journal Automated System Marketplace:
An Industry redefined (April 1, 2007)
An increasingly consolidated industry
VC and Private Equity playing a stronger role then
ever before
Moving out of a previous phase of fragmentation
where many companies expend energies producing
decreasingly differentiated systems in a limited
marketplace
Narrowing of product options
Open Source opportunities rise to challenge
stranglehold of traditional commercial model
Library Automation M&A History
Consolidation among Libraries
for automation
More libraries banding together to share automation
environment
Reduce overhead for maintaining systems that have
decreasing strategic importance
Need to focus technical talent on activities that have
more of an impact on the mission of the library
Pooled resources for technical processing
Single library ILS implementations becoming less
defensible
Essential for libraries to gain increased leverage
relative to large companies
Diverse Business Activities
Many ways to expand business in ways
that leverage library automation
expertise:
Non-ILS software
Retrospective conversion services
RFID or AMH
Network Consulting Services
Content products
Key Business Perspective
Given the relative parity of library
automation systems, choosing the right
automation partner is more important than
splitting hairs over functionality.
Understanding of library issues
Vision and forward-looking development
Product and Technology Trends
Current state of the Integrated
Library System
The core ILS focused mostly on print resources
and traditional library workflow processes.
Add-ons available for dealing with electronic
content:
Link resolvers
Metasearch environments
Electronic Resource Management
A loosely integrated environment
Labor-intensive implementation and maintenance
Most are “must have” products for academic
libraries with significant collections of e-content
Library OPAC
Evolved from card catalogs and continues to
be bound by the constraints of that legacy.
Complex and rich in features
Interfaces often do not compare favorably with
alternatives available on the Web
Print materials becoming a smaller component
of the library’s overall collections.
State of the Library OPAC?
Comprehensive Automation
The
goal of the Integrated
Library Systems involves the
automation of all aspects of
the library’s internal
operations and to provide key
services to library users.
ILS – Broad Overview
Business
automation system
Automates each aspect of a
library’s operations
Smaller libraries may
implement only selected
modules
Tightly integrated modules
ILS characteristics
Shared bibliographic database
Holdings records
Copy records
Circulation transaction file
Patron database
Acquisitions: vendor database, financial
transaction files
Serials – volume holdings records; issue
check-in records; summary holdings, routing,
etc
OpenURL Link Resolver
Context-sensitive Linking
Links to resources built dynamically
Benefits for library users
A more seamless and unified interface to
assist users with their research using library
resources
Need to present the user with the appropriate
copy
Ability to offer other services and options
Multiple copies available for any given
document or resource
Benefits for Library Staff
Static URL’s becoming untenable in electronic
publishing environment
Placing static links in 856 fields increasingly
untenable
URL’s change – direct deep linking unstable
Libraries change sources for content
Single point of management for article
databases and e-journal holdings
Can be populated and updated by providers such
as Serial Solutions
More than linking citation to full text
Holdings look-up in OPACS
Requests for document delivery
Interlibrary Loan request
Related works – more by this author
The down side of dynamic reference
linking
More options, more complexity
No guarantee that links created by a
resolving application will be successful
Eg: TOC instead of full text
Users may not always understand what
is happening
Maintaining the Link Resolver database
Reference linking framework
A database populated with data about the library’s electronic
resources
What aggregations the library owns
Which titles available in each aggregation
What years available for each title
Which stand-alone e-journals?
A&I databases
Metadata harvested from a citation and passed through the
OpenURL syntax
A resolver that turns metadata into a specific link to the
appropriate link
Resolver can provide links to other services
ILL/Document Delivery request
Holdings Look-up in library catalog
Web search
OpenURL Framework
Linking Products – Applications that rely
on the OpenURL specification
Sources -- a resource capable of
generating an OpenURL
Targets – Web-based resources capable
of being linked to in an OpenURL
environment
Link Server or Resolver
A server that resolves an OpenURL into one or more
services.
Takes into consideration the local context of the user
What content is available through subscriptions provided by
the institution?
What content is available within each database or full-text
aggregation
Other services available: print holdings; document
delivery; bookstore purchase;
OpenURL
A de facto standard for reference linking
A syntax to create web-transportable
packages of metadata or identifiers about an
information object
Not a static link
Transports metadata
Relies on a local resolver, which makes use of
data carried on the OpenURL to perform
services
Linking Products
SFX -- Ex Libris
WebBridge -- Innovative
360 Link -- Serials Solutions
LinkSource -- EBSCO
1Cate -- Openly Informatics / OCLC
Digital asset management
Products for creating and managing
collections of digital content
Utility for creating metadata
Dublin Core
VRA
Other library / discipline-specific formats
Library-specific products
CONTENTdm – OCLC
Digitool – Ex Libris
Hyperion – SirsiDynix
Luna Imaging
Metasearching / Federated
Searching
Allows the user to enter a search once to
search multiple databases
All selected resources searched
simultaneously
Single user interface
Results presented through the
metasearch application not in their native
interface
Metasearch groupings
Resources organized by the library into
groups
Typically subject based
Relieves the users from having to know
what products cover what topics
Generally impractical to search all
products in each query
Common metaserach features
Presents common interface for formulating
query
Keyword combinations and options
Boolean operators
Results interfiled or separated by source
Deduplication of results
Sort and relevancy options
Customization to blend with library’s Web site
– color scheme, fonts, layout, banner, logo,
etc.
Authentication
Needs to work for remote users
Interface with campus authentication
environment
Interacts with proxy servers
Other Features
General tool for managing access to
electronic resources
Links to native interfaces
Select resources by subject
Link to native interfaces
Detailed information about each
resource
Technical challenge
How to perform search and retrieval among
many separate information resources that
operate in fundamentally different ways
Target resources vary significantly
Abstract and Indexing (A&I) databases
Full Text resources
Library Catalogs
Specialized databases
No single search and retrieval protocol used
among the common library information
resources
Limitations
Not all resources can participate in
metasearch environment
Shallow result sets returned from each
target
Difficult to achieve true relevancy
Slow Performance
Architecture and Technology
Components
Take advantage of search and retrieval
protocols when possible
Z39.50 (mostly library catalogs)
Web services
XML gateways
SQL interfaces
Proprietary API (Applications Programming
Interface)
HTML Parsing
Technology…
Connectors or source packages that
understand how to send queries to and
receive results from each resource
All results converted into a unified record
structure
Application component for managing
results
Web interface for presenting results
Moving forward:
Transition to an era of nextgeneration library interfaces
Traditional Library Search Model
Provide
a full featured OPAC
Give the user a screen full of search
options
Assume that researchers will begin
with library resources
Reliance on Bibliographic Instruction
Troubling statistic
Where do you typically begin your
search for information on a
particular topic?
College Students Response:
89%Search engines (Google 62%)
2% Library Web Site (total respondents -> 1%)
2% Online Database
1% E-mail
1% Online News
1% Online bookstores
0% Instant Messaging / Online Chat
OCLC. Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources
(2005) p. 1-17.
New Library Search Model
Don’t count on users beginning their research
with library catalogs or Web site
Consider the library’s Web site as a
destination
Make it a compelling and attractive destination
that uses will want to explore more.
Web users have a low tolerance for ineffective
and clunky interfaces
Library Discovery
Model A
Web
Library Web Site / Catalog
Library as search Destination
Library Discovery Model B
Do not give up on library search
technologies!
Libraries must also build their own
discovery, search, and access services
Effective, elegant, powerful
Once users discover your library, give
them outstanding services:
Catalog search, federated search, contextsensitive linking, etc.
Library Discovery Model C
Expose library content and services through nonlibrary interfaces
Campus portals, courseware systems, e-learning
environments
County and municipal portals and e-government
Other external content aggregators: RSS, etc
Web services is the essential enabling technology for
the delivery of library content and services to external
applications.
Library community lags years behind other IT
industries in adoption of SOA and Web services.
Working toward next generation
library interfaces
Redefinition of the library catalog
More comprehensive information
discovery environments
Better information delivery tools
More powerful search capabilities
More elegant presentation
Comprehensive Search Service
More like OAI
Problems of scale diminished
Problems of cooperation persist
Replacement Search Interfaces:
Endeca Guided Search
AquaBrowser Library
Are library users satisfied with
native ILS interfaces?
Replacement OPACs
Endeca Guided Navigation
AquaBrowser Library
Common thread:
Decoupled interface
Mass export of catalog data
Alternative search engine
Alternative interface
Expanded discovery and delivery
tools
Ex Libris Primo (in development)
Encore from Innovative Interfaces (in
development)
Common threads:
Decoupled interface
Comprehensive indexes that span multiple and
diverse information resources
Alternative interface
Library-developed solutions
eXtensible Catalog
University of Rochester – River Campus
Libraries
Financial support from the Andrew W.
Mellon Foundation
http://www.extensiblecatalog.info/
Redefinition of library catalogs
and interfaces
Traditional notions of the library catalog are
being questioned
It’s no longer enough to provide a catalog
limited to print resources
Digital resources cannot be an afterthought
Forcing users to use different interfaces
depending on type of content becoming less
tenable
Libraries working toward consolidated search
environments that give equal footing to digital
and print resources
Interface expectations
Millennial gen library users are well acclimated
to the Web and like it.
Used to relevancy ranking
The “good stuff” should be listed first
Users tend not to delve deep into a result list
Good relevancy requires a sophisticated approach,
including objective matching criteria supplemented
by popularity and relatedness factors.
Interface expectations (cont…)
Very rapid response. Users have a low tolerance for
slow systems
Rich visual information: book jacket images, rating
scores, etc.
Let users drill down through the result set
incrementally narrowing the field
Faceted Browsing
Drill-down vs up-front Boolean or “Advanced Search”
gives the users clues about the number of hits in each sub
topic.
Navigational Bread crumbs
Ratings and rankings
Global vs Local
How do library collections relate to the global
realm
Will mass digitization replace local library
collections?
The global arena excels at discovery
The local arena focuses on content delivery
All the global content discovery tools point to
locally managed content.
Multi-layered information
discovery
Global : Google
Institutional / Regional : Primo
Granular: Individual catalogs and repositories
Broad -> Precise
Offer both the ability to “find a few good things” and to
“find exactly the right things (and all of them)”
Appropriate avenues for both the undergraduate
learner and the serious scholar.
Questions and Discussion